Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jeff Romine is impressed by the high-end research equipment—such as this laser-based flow cytometer—available to Eckerd undergraduates. Photo by Michel Fougères
Jeff Romine, a visiting assistant professor of chemistry at Eckerd College, thought he had pretty much seen it all.
Growing up in Chicago, he had braved cold winds and then snow and ice while living in Connecticut—going on to earn a Ph.D. as a synthetic organic chemist at The Ohio State University. Next, he spent more than a quarter-century working at Bristol Myers Squibb’s laboratory in Wallingford, Connecticut, where he climbed the ranks to become a senior principal scientist. He was part of the team that developed daclatasvir, a groundbreaking antiviral medication used to treat hepatitis C.
“That was probably the greatest experience of my career,” he says. “Within a year there were more than 60 patents filed by other companies, all trying to follow up on our compound. This was unheard of, but it showed we were working in an exciting area of research.”
Visiting Assistant Professor of Chemistry Jeff Romine
From there, he went on to teach chemistry for four and a half years at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, and then for a short layover at Fresno Pacific University filling in for a professor on leave. He has over 60 publications and patents of his own to show for his career so far—predominantly in the areas of virology, neuroscience, and cardiovascular disease.
In August, he and his wife of 43 years settled into an apartment near Boca Ciega Bay in St. Petersburg, and he joined the faculty at Eckerd, where he teaches Organic Chemistry I and II.
And then came the night of September 26.
That was when Hurricane Helene arrived with 80 mph winds and a 7-foot storm surge that flooded large sections of coastal Pinellas County. “We had water right up to our doorstep,” Romine says. “It didn’t come in, but many of our neighbors were flooded. The bigger thing for me was that the campus closed down so that we shifted back to COVID days, teaching online for about the next six weeks.”
As for regrets, there are none. “The faculty here is very personable,” he says.
“They appreciate my pharmaceutical background. Among all the other chemistry departments I had interviewed for, I was really impressed with the equipment and instrumentation here. It’s high end, and it’s great for undergraduates to have access to it.
“Of all the jobs I could have taken, Eckerd was the best,” he adds. “And my wife and I like St. Pete a lot. I’ve noticed how similar the city is to Honolulu.”
